“This is not a call to retreat from progress. It’s a call to double down on it. With compassion, clarity and conviction. We need leaders who will speak truthfully about racism, poverty, gun violence, extremism, and the failures of our mental health and criminal justice systems. Not to divide us but to heal us.”

“The governor’s budget office said it wants the Illinois General Assembly to ‘immediately’ change state law to decouple from the new ‘bonus depreciation’ law ($121 million in corporate income taxes and $23 million in individual taxes) and unspecified others. It also wants the General Assembly to update state law to ‘reflect the federal change from global intangible low-taxed income to net controlled foreign corporation tested income’ ($90 million corporate).”

Gov. JB Pritzker encouraged peaceful protests to continue against Immigration and Customs Enforcement, though he worried about people with bad intentions embedding in peaceful protests. “Look, I only have concern if peaceful protesters are somehow disrupted by people who are not being peaceful, or by ICE,” Pritzker said.

The Governor’s Office of Management and Budget warns “the ability to fund new programs will be severely limited,” sending an early message to advocates and lawmakers seeking new or increased state spending that their requests might not be answered.

Kimmel has been asking viewers to send in videos with #showmeyourhellhole in cities where President Donald Trump has deployed National Guard members. Thursday night, he turned to a “very special report” filed by Pritzker. “This is JB Pritzker, reporting from war-torn Chicago. As you can see, there’s utter mayhem and chaos on the ground. It’s quite disturbing,” he say. “We’ve seen people being forced to eat hot dogs with ketchup on them, and our deep dish pizza, well, has gone shallow.”

Hegseth responds: “Governor, you might try a pushup or two… (In the meantime, our troops will do the job you refuse to do.)”

Illinois law requires schools to report discipline data and for districts with high or disproportionate suspensions to create reduction plans. “This law is another example of our state lawmakers overstepping their bounds and trying to control everything from Springfield,” state Rep. Regan Deering said.

OpenPayrolls, which tracks the data nationwide, found that the average annual state government salary in 2023 in Illinois, excluding university jobs, is about $79,000. That pay has been further buoyed by raises since, including a recently self-imposed raise for lawmakers that increased their base pay to $98,000, which is also in the Top 5 among states.

Even in a global pumpkin destination, Ackerman Family Farms in Morton is closing the agritourism part of the farm after 25 years of business, largely because of labor costs. Owner John Ackerman said, “Labor’s our single largest expense, and the minimum wage has almost doubled in the last six years. Not that it’s wrong, but it affects us and other expenses.”

“If they can reach a cease fire agreement in Gaza of all places, can’t our leaders somehow craft a deal to end the deepening war over Chicago immigration raids?”

“I simply cannot credit [the Trump administration’s] declarations to the extent they contradict state and local law enforcement,” Judge April Perry said. “[The Department of Homeland Security’s] perception of events [is] simply unreliable.” Perry pointed to other federal prosecutions or lawsuits in Chicago and said “in the last 48 hours, in four separate unrelated legal decisions from different neutral parties, they all cast significant doubt on DHS’ credibility and assessment of what is happening on the streets of Chicago.”